Re: DOCBOOK: Line breaks

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com> was heard to say:
| > From: Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>
| >
| > | <aside>Er..uhmm..I am asking these questions in the assumption
| > | that a request for including something like "newline" 
| > | in DocBook would be a vain one - though "newline" is, 
| > | is it not, structural information?<duck/></aside>
| > 
| > No, it's purely presentational. What semantic meaning does it
| > have?  And how do you propose to implement your markup on a PDA
| > or speaking cell phone? At least with a variablelist, you can
| > identify the terms and imagine doing something else for limited
| > display environments.
| 
| I'm certain you are not saying that all line breaks
| are purely presentational.  After all, Docbook supplies 
| <literallayout> and <programlisting> to preserve line
| breaks where they have semantic meaning, such as
| poetry and program code.

You're right, but arbitrary, random linebreaks are rarely more
than presentational.

And I'm not saying authors don't want to do it, but DocBook does
try to remain as structural as possible. For environments where
linebreaks are usually relevant (addresses, etc.) DocBook
provides things like literallayout.

To date, no one has presented a situation (except in
CommandSynopsis where we have <sbr>) that seemed to justify
adding an arbitrary linebreak element to DocBook.


                                        Cheers,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Things work out best for those who
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | make the best of the way things
Member, DocBook Editorial Board    | work out.